CARLTON "CARLY" BARRETT (17 December 1950 – 17 April 1987) was an
influential reggae drummer and percussion player. His musical
development in the early years was with his brother Aston "Family Man"
Barrett as a member of
Lee "Scratch" PerryLee "Scratch" Perry 's "house band" The
Upsetters . The brothers joined
Bob MarleyBob Marley and The Wailers around
1970. He wrote the well known
Bob MarleyBob Marley song "War" and with his
brother Aston co-wrote "Talkin' Blues".
Carlton Barrett is featured on
all the albums recorded by the Wailers. Barrett popularised the one
drop rhythm , a percussive drumming style created by
Winston Grennan .
With Carly's beats and his brother Aston's bass, the Wailer rhythm
section planted the seeds of today's international reggae. Barrett was
murdered outside his home in
JamaicaJamaica on 17 April 1987.

BIOGRAPHY

"Carly Barrett", as he liked to be called, was born in
JamaicaJamaica in
1950, the son of Wilfred and Violet Barrett. As a teenager he built
his first set of drums out of some empty paint tins, and had initially
been influenced by
Lloyd Knibb , the great drummer from the Skatalites
. He and his brother Aston were raised in Kingston and absorbed the
emerging ska sound. Working as a welder he first tried building a
guitar and playing. He realised guitar wasn't his thing and picked up
the drums.

In the late 1960s Carlton started playing sessions with his brother
Aston, the pair calling themselves the Soul Mates or the Rhythm Force,
before settling on
The Hippy Boys , a line-up that featured Max Romeo
on vocals. Leroy Brown ,
Delano Stewart ,
Glen Adams and Alva Lewis
also played in the band's fluctuating line-up.

For Perry, they took the name
The Upsetters , and knocked out a long
run of instrumentals, including "Clint Eastwood", "Cold Sweat", "Night
Doctor", and "Live Injection". It was while with Perry that the
Barrett brothers first teamed up with The Wailers, then a vocal trio
consisting of Bob, Peter and Bunny. After recording many now classic
numbers, Carly and Aston decided to team up with The Wailers on a
permanent basis.

The Barrett brothers recorded several singles with the Wailers in
1969–70: "My Cup (Runneth Over)", "Duppy Conqueror, "Soul Rebel",
and "Small Axe". Most of these songs appeared on two Perry-produced
Wailers albums:
Soul RebelsSoul Rebels and Soul Revolution, and formed the early
foundation of the one drop sound.

Carlton remained with the Wailers in the studio and on tour until Bob
Marley's death in 1981. His signature style can be heard on every
recording the Wailers produced since 1969, with the exception of the
1970 "Soul Shakedown Party" sessions produced by
Leslie Kong .

On 17 April 1987, just as Carlton arrived at his Kingston home and
walked across his yard, a gunman stepped up behind him and shot him
twice in the head. He was dead on arrival at a Kingston hospital at
age 36.

Shortly after his murder, Carlton's wife, Albertine, her lover, a
taxi driver named Glenroy Carter, and another man, Junior Neil, were
arrested and charged with his killing. Albertine and Carter escaped
the murder charge, and were instead convicted and sentenced to 7 years
for conspiracy . After just one year in prison, they were released in
December 1992 on a legal technicality .

EQUIPMENT

Throughout his tenure with the Wailers and other projects, Carlton
used a standard five-piece drum set consisting of a bass drum , two
tom-toms (mounted on the bass drum), a floor tom-tom, and a snare drum
.

Each tom-tom had only one drumhead , which gave the drums a dry sound
that was ideal for the close-miked environment of the recording
studio. However, it was Carlton's snare drum which was perhaps the
biggest part of his signature sound. Carlton used Ludwig drums, and
his snare was the popular Supraphonic model, which is made of
"ludalloy", an aluminium alloy . The metal construction of the drum,
in combination with the extremely high head tension that Carlton
preferred, produced a loud, cutting "crack" sound that was a very
prominent element of the Wailers' recordings. Carlton almost always
left the snare wires of the drum disengaged, making the drum sound
very similar to a timbale .

It is unknown exactly what make and model of cymbals were used on
Carlton's drum set, although it is very likely that they were made by
the
Avedis Zildjian CompanyAvedis Zildjian Company in the
United StatesUnited States and imported into
Jamaica. Carlton used only a pair of hi-hat cymbals (relatively light
in weight), at times with a cloth placed between the two cymbals, and
two crash cymbals (most likely of medium weight), but due the nature
of Carlton's style, in which the snare drum, bass drum, and hi-hat
cymbals were the primary timekeeping instruments, he did not use a
ride cymbal .

He also used a cowbell for live performances, evident in Bob Marley
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